Conclusion

Abstract

The theory of interpretation I have sought to construct is indeed a pragmatic theory: it describes interpretation as a language-game, the aim of which is to account for the interpreted text as part of that game, as the centre round which a language-game, in other words a pantomime of actants, is deployed. But it is also pragmatic in a stronger sense. Because it analyses texts as parts of ALTER structures, it displaces the focus away from the exchange of messages towards the application, or ‘communication’, of forces: this is why the nexus of interpellation and counter-interpellation (or imposture) lies at the centre of this book. This movement is reflected within the determinations of the concept ‘interpretation’ as the passage from glossing and guessing (where a message is communicated in the ordinary sense) to translation and intervention (where counter-interpellation is rife and rapports de force are established). Or again, it is reflected in the contrast between irene, as in an ethics of dialogue of the Habermas type, and agon, in its three senses of contest, of game with rules, and of literary (dramatic) action: the theory of interpretation here presented is undoubtedly agonistic.